'Survivor: Cook Islands' sends Anh-Tuan Bui and Cristina Coria home

By Reality TV World staff, 10/20/2006

Done in by a surprise twist in which there was no Immunity Challenge and both Survivor: Cook Islands tribes were instead forced to attend Tribal Council, Anh-Tuan "Cao Boi" Bui, a 42-year-old nail salon manager from Christianburg, VA, and Cristina Coria, a 35-year-old police officer from Los Angeles, CA, Ohio, were voted out of the game during last night's broadcast of the CBS reality show.

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Survivor: Cook Islands' sixth episode began with the new Rarotonga tribe having returned from the Night 14 Tribal Council in which they voted Stephannie Favor out of the game. Once the tribe returned to camp, Cristina confronted Adam Gentry about his Tribal Council comments in which he told Survivor host Jeff Probst that many of her tribemates felt Cristina was annoying.

The next day, Oscar "Ozzy" Lusth further cemented his position as the Aitutaki tribe's top fisherman -- and in the process, also reconfirmed his status as the tribe's top post-merge individual Immunity Challenge threat. "He's a great fisherman... we need his strength for the group to move forward, but as an individual threat, he's the biggest threat," Jonathan Penner commented after the pair returned from another incredibly successful fishing trip. "Certainly if the merge were to happen today, I wouldn't want him around... he's a very, very, strong player."

Later that day, Jonathan and Cao Boi argued about whether it was appropriate for the tribe to bring the Immunity Idol they had won at the last Immunity Challenge to the game's next Reward Challenge. While Jonathan felt that bringing it would be poor sportsmanship, Cao Boi felt otherwise. "I would bring the Immunity Idol with us at all times, every challenge... the ocean god of fertility came to us as the Immunity Idol, he's our extra member," Cao Boi explained during confessional. However after encountering resistance from Jonathan, Cao Boi abandoned his stance. "Have it your way, we'll leave it... I don't need to argue, the hell with it," Cao Boi told Jonathan.

After the tribes assembled for the Reward Challenge, Jeff informed the tribes that while the challenge's winners would receive a barbecue lamb feast, the feast would take place at Tribal Council -- which whether they won or lost the Reward Challenge, both tribes would be attending that evening. The winning tribe would attend Tribal Council first, and, after voting off one of their own members, move to the Tribal Council set's jury area. Once there, they would eat their feast while listening in on the other tribe's Tribal Council session.

A physical competition, the challenge required each of the tribes to select three members that would each attempt to cling to a large post. Then, once the challenge began, two of the remaining members of each tribe would have to race out from their own mat and attempt to pull one of the other tribe's members off their post and drag them back to the starting mat. The first tribe to drag all three of the other tribe's members off their posts and back to their mat would win the challenge. .

After deciding that Cao Boi would be the odd man to sit out the challenge, Rarotonga selected Cristina, Jenny Guzon-Bae, and Nathan Gonzalez as its "pole grabbers." Aitutaki selected Ozzy, Candice Woodcock, and Sundra Oakley. Once the challenge began, Aitutaki members Becky Lee and Jessica Smith quickly pulled Jenny from her pole, and with Candice proving surprisingly strong against Rarotonga's team of Rebecca Borman and Parvati Shallow, it wasn't long before Aitutaki had moved into a comfortable lead. Although Nathan and Cristina's subsequent strong resistance did later help narrow the gap, Aitutaki still ended up handily winning the challenge.

Once the tribes returned to their camps, the scheming began in earnest. At Aitutaki, Cao Boi began campaigning for "Plan Voodoo," a dream-inspired strategy that he hoped would "flush out" whether Exile Island's hidden Immunity Idol had been found. Suspecting that Jonathan might have found the hidden Idol during his two stays on Exile Island -- and also apparently confident that this season's Tribal Council tie votes would be broken by some type of tiebreaker challenge that Jonathan wouldn't want to risk competing in and not simply a re-vote -- Cao Boi's plan was to convince the rest of his eight member tribe to intentionally create a 3-3 tie vote between Jonathan and Candice (who like Jonathan, had also previously been to Exile Island.)

In addition to helping determine whether Jonathan and Candice had found the Immunity Idol, Cao Boi also saw a second benefit to "Plan Voodoo" -- the fact that it would ensure that when the two tribes merged into one, all five members of the original Caucasian-only Rarotonga tribe wouldn't be able to re-align. "If we merge, the Caucasians, they become real strong -- if they have five members attack, they can knock us all out," Cao Boi -- who had originally been part of the all-Asian Puka Puka tribe that also still had all five of its original members still competing in the game -- explained to the cameras.

But while Cao Boi was attempting to convince six of his tribemates to target Jonathan and Candice, the rest of the tribe had apparently already decided that while they would humor him and pretend to go along with his plan, Cao Boi would be the one going home. "The consensus is that Cao Boi should go because he is pissing people off... he's a bit of a wild card and it's time to vote him off," Jonathan (who had already formed a four-person alliance with Candice, Becky, and Yul Kwon before the new Aitutaki tribe had its first -- and to date only -- Tribal Council a week earlier) explained during a confessional.

Meanwhile, over at Rarotonga's camp, Cristina -- fully aware, thanks to Adam's previous night's Tribal Council comments, that she was likely to be the next Rarotonga member that the rest of the tribe would be sending home -- attempted to convince her tribemates to give her a second chance. "I'm bummed because I could be the next one of the tribe, especially after last night's Tribal Council... but I'm see what I can do," Cristina told the cameras.

After talking with Cristina, Nate -- realizing that all five of original Puka Puka tribe members were still in the game -- began to consider whether it might instead make more sense to send Jenny home. "I'm scared that Jenny may be tight with them other Asians on the other team and if we merge and there's [still all] three of them [over there], she could cut us up," Nate confided to Rebecca.

"Cristina's close with me and there are a lot of good characteristics about her... if I were to keep Cristina, Jenny would have to go," Nate added during a confessional. "Jenny's sweet [but] I don't know if I can trust her yet." However in Adam's eyes, the decision was clear. "I think we've got a game plan and I think we're going to stick to it," Adam told the cameras. "Cristina's the one that's going to be voted off and I don't think that's changed."

When Aitutaki arrived at Tribal Council, Cao Boi -- who had made a point of once again needlessly bringing the Immunity Idol along -- remained confident that "Plan Voodoo" was still in effect. "We're looking down the road to the big picture... we'll see if we can expose the Queen, find a weakness," Cao Boi cryptically boasted to Jeff." However when the votes were counted, Cao Boi was the one to hear "checkmate." Only Jessica had followed through with "Plan Voodoo," resulting in Cao Boi going home in a 6-2 vote.

After Cao Boi's torch was extinguished, Aitutaki moved over to the jury area and Rarotonga arrived for their own Tribal Council session. After presenting Aitutaki with their food and interviewing Rarotonga about their upcoming vote, Jeff announced that the night's dual Tribal Council would also feature one additional twist -- since they had won the Reward Challenge, Aitutaki would get to "kidnap" one Rarotonga tribe member.

"They will be immune from tonight's Tribal Council. They will come over to your side, sit with you. They will have a plate of food. They will return to camp with you and they will be a part of your tribe through the next Reward Challenge," Jeff explained when Aitutaki asked for clarification about what the "kidnapping" would entail. After conferring amongst themselves, Aitutaki decided (presumably in an attempt to weaken Rarotonga for the next Reward Challenge) to select Nate. After Nate joined Aitutaki and the six remaining Rarotonga voted, Nate and Aitutaki departed.

When Jeff tallied Rarotonga's votes, there was little surprise -- only Brad Virata had followed through with Cristina's request to give her a "second chance," resulting in Cristina being sent home via a 4-2 vote.

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